The Topside of the Underworld
by YandereAlice
Summary: Two birds of the corvus genus can only mean one thing. Right?


A/N: I've also uploaded this to my AO3 account, the link can be found here: /works/4140732/chapters/9339216

Utsuho couldn't get herself off of the ground. She had grown tired some time after leaving the underground world to go topside, so she laid down.

It was like a trance. An inescapable trance. This hell-flame manager did not want to get up any time soon, so she laid very still, staring at the sun. After a little while, she finally closed her eyes and fell asleep. It wasn't too bright out, in fact, it was kind of gray out. The perfect sky for a weather reporter to actually be concerned.

That's just what Aya was doing. Going around checking to see if the sky was that gray muddled mess everywhere. Sure enough, it was. Honestly, she was a little disheartened, she had hoped for sunny weather so she could continue flying about without getting wet.

With a sad sigh, she looked around, trying to find anything that may be able to prove the sky wrong. Surely no one had intentions of messing around today, right? Well, it was Gensokyo, that's what all of the residents did. Mess around. It was like everyone loved to pull pranks on each other. Although it did make for good stories from time to time, nobody really wanted to hear about that kind of thing all the time.

Aya went around, asking everyone about anything that may have been interesting enough to write a story about. Sadly, there was nothing. Not a story at all, there was nothing to report except that the sky was a dull gray. She was going back to the mountains where she lived when she noticed something on the ground. Considering she was far up in the sky, it wasn't a surprise she couldn't tell what it was at first. Only when she finally started descending did she notice what it truly was. The hell crow.

Almost like a light switch being turned on, she flew down to the hell raven that was dozing off in tengu territory. Why was she topside? Wasn't it established that Utsuho being topside was a bad idea? Aya grew frustrated, was she trying to take over Gensokyo again? But if she was, why would she fall asleep? As a million questions piled in her head, she pulled out her trusty notebook and started to jot down a few of them, just in case it turned out Utsuho was actually topside for that reason.

"Hey, hell crow!" Aya said in an agitated tone. When Utsuho didn't move, it only fueled the tengu's questions more. "Hell crow, wake up." Still, there was no response. This caused Aya to inwardly groan as Utsuho was still sleeping. She was going to have to resort to drastic measures. Regrettably, she kicked the sleeping hell raven. It wasn't like Aya wanted to hurt her, but she wasn't waking up, so it really wasn't her fault.

Luckily, it did the trick, and Utsuho opened her eyes with a groan. Upon realizing she was actually kicked by the tengu, she grew discontent. "What? What do you want?" She replied with a hiss.

"Why are you topside?" Aya was going to get to the bottom of this mystery, and believe it or not, she was going to do it by any means possible at the moment. She didn't really have a good history with the hell raven, but it couldn't really be helped. After all, Utsuho did try to take over Gensokyo that one time.

"Why am I topside?" She slurred back, sitting up, just to fall back down. "I don't know, I just felt like it."

"You just felt like it. Okay there, hell crow." Aya shook her head and held her hand out to the tired raven. "We both know that's a lie."

"You never know," Utsuho yawned, taking Aya's hand and standing up. "I should've stayed home, it's gross out." The control rod that was usually on her arm was off today, since she had planned to go topside, and being topside meant that she could leave her duties home. "Am I not allowed to go outside once in a while?"

"Well, considering what you tried to do last time, it's no surprise that no one really wants you up here." Aya said as bluntly as she possibly could.

"That's not fair, I really could just want to get out once in a while!" Utsuho looked pitifully at Aya. "It gets awfully lonely when I'm cooped up down there for too long. Like a bird in a cage."

Aya snickered, considering they both had relations to bird, it was funny that Utsuho bring that up. "So, when you're in hell for too long, you get antsy?"

"A lot actually! I mean, aside from managing the flames, I don't really do anything else. It's really boring you know?" Utsuho talked excitedly, glad she could open up to an outsider about what was really going on down there. "I don't really have anyone to talk to aside from Rin about this kind of thing."

"Ah, I guess that makes sense. Anyways, you should probably leave soon, the other tengu are even less fond of you than me." Aya nodded as she spoke. "Surely you'd understand, after all, you did try to take over Gensokyo!" Every chance she got, she mentioned the time where Utsuho tried to take over the topside world.

"Yeah," Utsuho felt kind of bad because she knew she shouldn't have tried to take over Gensokyo, but it wasn't like she could help it at the time. "Thanks for letting me talk to you either way, it was really nice. I'll see you around?"

"I'll see you later hell crow!" Aya flew off, going from zero to fifty in the matter of a few seconds.

Utsuho walked off after Aya was out of sight, going back to the entrance of the underworld. It was pleasant, talking to the tengu. She was certain she had met Aya before, she seemed very familiar. She found it odd that Aya referenced how she had tried to take over Gensokyo so many times. Maybe they ran into each other during that time? But at the same time, she'd never met her before, she was sure of it.

Brushing it off, Utsuho descended to the underworld. Despite how Aya was being kind to her, she felt that Aya actually held a deep hatred because of how often she referenced Utsuho's previous mistakes. In any case, she couldn't wait to go home and get some sleep.


End file.
